MVNC: A SDN-based Multi-tenant Virtual Network Customization Mechanism in Cloud Data Center

Abstract

Software Defined Network (SDN) is a programmable network structure which achieves separation of control and forwarding via a centralized controller. Existing cloud data center network introduces SDN architecture, and enhances data center scalability via advantages of programmable thinking and centralized control. OpenStack is a free and open-source software platform for cloud computing, which provides computing, storage and network management services for cloud computing resources. However, with rapid development of various types of services, the current SDN data center based on OpenStack cannot satisfy multiple users' service requirements. Cloud data center network with single control node cannot achieve tenants' customization of their own network. Thus, multi-tenant virtual network customization (MVNC) mechanism is presented in this paper. The tenant isolation is achieved in cloud data center network through network slice. At the same time, centralized control of tenant virtual network provides a global topology management. Tenant isolation, link switching and efficiency of flow table sending are tested in this paper. Results show that proposed mechanism can flexibly and efficiently help tenants for network customization operation in OpenStack cloud platform.